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Because there’s a hefty list below, we’ll not comment on every song. Social Media with a music focus (MySpace, Pandora, Last.FM) has been of enormous importance in the past 10 years. As well as being platforms and tools that have liberated music, they’ve become gatherings of fans and lists by the millions.

Web 2.0 allows us to bookmark, collate and re-process information in a wonderful variety of ways. We use Last.FM extensively, not least because we live most of the year outside the US of A (see footnote regarding Pandora). The list below has been gathered from “loved” tracks in people’s playlists.

Rather than say there is one winner or a ranking based on votes for a particular song, we’ve awarded Gold medals to 17 bands/projects. We’ve taken the view that, like the Olympics, it can be difficult to precisely judge styles of music. Is a gold in a marathon of more “value” than the long jump?

The 54 tracks below are the best we’ve heard and noted over the past few years, representing many albums and changes in line-ups of the various groups of musicians over the past 10 years. They are, we say, among the Best of the Decade for:

Femme metal

Gothic Metal

Symphonic Metal

or whatever other descriptive term you’d like to use. And yes, you’re very welcome to tell us how right or wrong we are!

Visions of Atlantis – At the Back of Beyond
Visions of Atlantis – Pharaoh’s Repentance

Within Temptation – Angels
Within Temptation – Ice Queen
Within Temptation – Memories
Within Temptation And The Metropole Orchestra – Jillian (I’d Give My Heart)
Within Temptation And The Metropole Orchestra – Stand My Ground
Within Temptation And The Metropole Orchestra – The Promise
Within Temptation And The Metropole Orchestra – What Have You Done (Featuring Keith Caputo)

This companion piece to The Social Media Decade #1 is our award of Silver medals to bands/projects. Any list of Best Of is subject to discussion (and dispute) and we welcome your comments.

The 30 tracks below grabbed our ears more than once but, for some reason, other songs by the artists failed to impress as much. For example, other Tristania tracks didn’t get added to many lists, while Elis (on our Gold list) received numerous mentions for their 3 tracks.

We reckon a Silver medal is still fantastic when weighted against the tens of thousands of other tracks out there. Listen and enjoy.

Keep seeing people mentioning Spotify as if it is something really new and really good. It’s a new site but an old concept. It’s not close to being good yet.

For example, Spotify does not have the Twilight soundtrack, even though it has been available for a while and does well in the charts. In contrast, Spotify does have Watchmen soundtrack, arguably of less importance in terms of music.

Spotify also lacks Lacuna Coil, Metallica, Kittie, Oceanlab, Bif Naked, Xandria, and has just one old Arch Enemy album.

The main reason we use music sites is for the music. Not for marketing messages. Not for repackaged promo hype. And not to listen to dumb adverts about car insurance or from ambulance chasers.